The largest sail, at the bottom, zooms out even further, showing that Adono and Alele are not having a private conversation, as the first two panels would lead us to believe. The next sail zooms outward, and we see Adono and Alele in a horizontal panel facing one another as Alele tells Adono that everyone will die. We see Adono’s face and the back of Alele’s head. This movement brings the focus to all of the enslaved individuals on the ship while foregrounding the fact that Adono and another enslaved woman, Alele, plan and start the rebellion onboard The Unity.īreaking down this page, the top sail shows Adono speaking to Alele. He breaks the ship parts up into six distinct panels, moving us from focusing on Adono, the woman who says, “They wait for our signal” to an enslaved woman, in the hold, passing tools to an enslaved individual so that they can break their chains. On the next page, Martínez presents us with a cross-section of the ship, from the top sails to the hold. We see a word balloon above the ship that simply reads, “They wait . . .” This introduction sets the stage, and the word balloon leaves us guessing on who says “They wait” and what will follow. The opening splash page shows the ship, bobbing up and down on the waves in the Atlantic Ocean in 1770.

The opening, which I’ll refer to as the “Prologue,” starts by showing the rebellion on The Unity, a ship carrying enslaved men and women from Africa to the United States. From the opening section, Martínez and Hall’s use of sequential art brings us into the narrative and engages us.

Wake rebecca hall